Pulsar
PSR B0540-69 (J0540-6919)
Young pulsar · in the remnant 0540-693
A neutron star spinning once every 0.051 seconds; the beams from its magnetic poles sweep across Earth on every turn. Not in the Milky Way but in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Host galaxy | Large Magellanic Cloud |
| Period | 50.570 ms (20 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 4.8×10⁻¹³ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 1,670 years |
| Magnetic field | 5.0×10¹² G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 1.5×10³⁸ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 147.2 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 49,700 pc (162.1 thousand ly) |
| Location | in the remnant 0540-693 |
| Discovery | 1984 · misc |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 5h 40m 11.2s |
| Declination (J2000) | −69° 19′ 54″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 21° N. South of latitude 21° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in December, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 162 thousand years ago. At that time Homo sapiens was spreading out of Africa; there was no farming yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 2.9 billion years.